BBC documentary: "Who needs fathers?"

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A new BBC series explores the reasons why fathers lose touch with their children post-separation.

The prospects for children who don't see their fathers are bleak, according to a Unicef report in 2007. Educationally, they do less well. They are more likely to get in trouble with the police, and to abuse drugs and alcohol. They also find it more difficult to form relationships. If Broken Britain that over-used moral call to arms has roots, they lie in broken homes. A third of children are now growing up without parents living under the same roof. Each of the 150,000 to 200,000 separations per year is a source of sadness for the children involved, children who yearn however unrealistically for mummy and daddy to live together happily ever after.

Not only did these women want total control of the children believing their love was enough they also expected their exes to keep them in the style to which they had become accustomed, while the men lived in cramped bedsits. When one man finally manages to remortgage his own home to keep a working mother in hers, her response is: OK, so I can book a holiday. These mothers cancelled contact arrangements, scuppered telephone calls, made false allegations of abuse, and prevented the men taking their children on holiday. Honestly, I feel like throwing in the towel, said one tearful father, who sat in his car outside his exs front door, waiting in vain for the children to come out. Only an emergency court order won him the day.

Agony of the frozen-out fathers

A new BBC series explores the reasons why fathers lose touch with their children post-separation. Cassandra Jardine investigates.

Watching a preview of next week's BBC series Who Needs Fathers?, I felt ashamed to be a woman. The men on the programme appeared to be loving, attentive fathers - not extremists in Batman costumes. All they wanted was to play their part in the upbringing of their children. But, at every turn, it seemed, vengeful, short-sighted women were selfishly trying to thwart them.

These mothers cancelled contact arrangements, scuppered telephone calls, made false allegations of abuse, and prevented the men taking their children on holiday. "Honestly, I feel like throwing in the towel," said one tearful father, who sat in his car outside his ex's front door, waiting in vain for the children to come out. Only an emergency court order won him the day.

Not only did these women want total control of the children - believing their love was enough - they also expected their exes to keep them in the style to which they had become accustomed, while the men lived in cramped bedsits. When one man finally manages to remortgage his own home to keep a working mother in hers, her response is: "OK, so I can book a holiday."

The programmes not only seek to explain why 40 per cent of fathers lose touch with their children within two years of divorce - the figure is likely to be even higher when unmarried parents separate - but also why this matters. Looking at the confused faces of children being fought over by parents like favourite toys, it was not difficult to imagine what might happen when they grew into teenagers, unsure about their loyalties and identities. Indeed, in the third programme, we see fatherless teenagers behaving appallingly.

The prospects for children who don't see their fathers are bleak, according to a Unicef report in 2007. Educationally, they do less well. They are more likely to get in trouble with the police, and to abuse drugs and alcohol. They also find it more difficult to form relationships. If Broken Britain - that over-used moral call to arms - has roots, they lie in broken homes.

A third of children are now growing up without parents living under the same roof. Each of the 150,000 to 200,000 separations per year is a source of sadness for the children involved, children who yearn - however unrealistically - for mummy and daddy to live together happily ever after. But those partings can be handled more or less well. The emotionally healthy 18 year-olds, says Judge Nicholas Crichton, who works in the family courts, "are those who can say, 'Whatever happened between my parents, I knew I was loved and that I was free to love both parents without feeling guilty.'?"

Too few children are growing up with that balance. Ninety three per cent of children live with their mother after a separation, and half then lose touch with the non-resident parent. That's a tragedy not only for the fathers, but for the grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins who would otherwise provide a support network for those children.

Acrimony is unavoidable when relationships end, but some couples, such as Chris and Angela in the first programme, succeed in suppressing their irritation with one another for the sake of their children. Why then do so many children lose a parent to this game of bitterness and revenge?

"Henry" (not his real name), who is seen in the second programme, tells me he blames a court system that is biased against fathers, as well as being expensive, slow and ineffectual. When his daughter was born, Henry wanted to be involved, even though he had subsequently married. In return for maintenance, he saw his daughter alternate weekends and took her on holiday. "She was a massive part of my life," he says. "Then her mother decided to live abroad."

He fought the move but, as in 99 per cent of cases, the mother won in court. "All a woman has to say is that refusal will psychologically damage her. There's a view that whatever is in the mother's interests is also in the childs interests, even though nine out of 10 non-resident parents then lose touch."

Henry did not wish to be one of them, but despite a 'mirror order' giving him visiting rights and regular contact, he has had to fight for every glimpse and chat, at a cost of 70,000, putting considerable strain on his marriage. "When we meet it's wonderful, but it's hard to slot into a role if you haven't seen a child regularly."

During the whole court process he felt "like the puppet in the hands of a puppeteer". He says: "I can understand why mothers use whatever power is at their disposal, but there was an imbalance." Many fathers feel the same. "In order to be considered equal, you have to be twice as good," says Simon Ramet, who has fought for half his child's time.

"The courts are still stuck in a 1950s paradigm of mothers doing the caring, and fathers doing the earning," says John Davies, chief executive of Families Need Fathers.

Women are also more likely to get legal aid than fathers, who have to weigh up the cost of pursuing a case against the fear that the longer they go without seeing a child, the weaker their case for maintaining contact becomes. "As few parents with young children can afford it, access to the law often depends on having wealthy parents. It tends to be a middle-class privilege," says Sara Feilden, producer for Films of Record, who made the BBC series.

Despite fears that speaking out will harm participants' contact arrangements, Fielden is glad to have found the brief window of opportunity in which to tell their stories. Last year, it became legal to report on the family courts, but a Bill is going through Parliament that would make it impossible, once again, to film people who have been involved in family legal disputes. "It's unlikely that we would ever again be able to make a programme about this important issue," she says.

The men filmed are eager to highlight the shortcomings of an overburdened legal system. Cafcass (the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service), which appoints guardians to represent the childs interests, is so stretched that it can take nine months to produce a report. When allegations of misconduct are made, contact is rightly refused until they have been investigated. But sometimes they are purely vexatious.

Families Need Fathers is fighting for a number of changes on behalf of all non-resident parents, mothers as well as fathers. These include publication of judgments so parents know what to expect (and may therefore avoid court), sanctions for those who make false allegations, and financial recognition that non-resident parents also have to maintain a home suitable for their children to visit.

The current system finds favour with few, least of all those whose lives are dominated by endless hearings and court orders. "You should be reasonable when splitting up," says Juliette Thomas, who was brave enough to defend on air her reluctance to allow Alex, her ex, his share of their four sons' time: she claimed lack of clarity in his plans. Unable to agree, the court process has made the gulf between them wider and Alex resentful.

Family breakdown is not unique to the UK, but some countries seem to handle it better. In Australia, an assumption of shared parenting was introduced four years ago, backed up by family centres where separating couples could be given information and counselling on sharing their children. More children are now staying in contact with both parents as a result.

Dr Mandy Bryon, chief psychologist at Great Ormond Street Hospital, tells parents: "Whether you like it or not, you will remain in a relationship with one another as parents of your children." To prepare for that, she believes couples need to acknowledge the errors in thinking that occur when people are angry and upset, and to anticipate the problems that cause flare-ups - late delivery back, changes of plans, and so on.

"If parents are living together and a child comes back from a visit to the park with the father in tears, the mother will try to reassure both parties. If they are separated she will say, 'Never again.' The father might ask the child not to tell Mummy. Then, when the child blurts out what Daddy said, the mother thinks something sinister is going on."

Judge Crichton already sends many parents on courses to learn about sharing. If we adopted a system similar to the Australian one, that would be compulsory before a couple go to court. "A good thing too," he says, "as the courts are not the best place to sort these matters out."

Both the Labour and Conservative parties have reviewed the family-law system. Henry Bellingham, shadow justice minister, talks of introducing automatic shared contact, if the Conservatives are elected, and using Sue Start centres for counselling. Looking at the worried eyes of children caught up in disputes that they don't understand, change can't come too soon.

"Who Needs Fathers" starts on BBC Two at 9pm next Wednesday (31 March 2010).

Documentary Details

1 of 3: Who Needs Fathers? BBC 2 March 31st - 9:00pm "For the Sake of the Kids"A major series to mark 20 years since the passing of the Children Act, investigates whether its key principle is being adhered to - that in family breakdown and divorce, the welfare of the child is paramount. One in three British children have parents who are separated, and it's their relationship with the absent parent that's the key factor in their long-term wellbeing. The first film follows two families in very different circumstances.

2 of 3: Who Needs Fathers? BBC 2 April 7th - 9:00pm "The Right to be Dad"The second film in this unique series about the experience of parents in the Family Courts looks behind the statistic that half of all contact orders are broken. Most of the media attention has focused on Fathers for Justice and their rooftop protests, but the real story is that thousands of ordinary fathers are losing contact with their children. This film follows three dads trying to keep regular contact with children they love.

3 of 3: Who Needs Fathers? BBC 2 April 14th - 9:00pm Details to be announced.

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(Britain) BBC: Who Needs Fathers? - For the Sake Of The Kids - YouTube

Additional material and links to YouTube videos (split into 6 parts) of the BBC program (1 of 3).

This is an interesting insight into how children are used as weapons by mothers in family disputes, how mothers are just allowed to use their own children as weapons, and how no matter the circumstances, the mother holds all the cards, SHE gets to decide if dad can take his own kids on holiday, SHE gets to decide if and when dad gets to see his kids at all, and if father wants access, he has to take a trip to the courts to see his own children, or to take them on holiday, and even then he isn't guaranteed that the law will be enforced, so he's forced to pay child support, and she is never forced to hand over the children to spend quality time with their father.

To sum up, this shows how fathers are viewed by the British justice system, and by the secretive family courts, to them, fathers mean nothing, only mothers matter, and very rarely do the children's needs matter.

BBC Series: 'Who Needs Fathers? For the Sake of the Kids,' Part I

I wrote recently about a three-part BBC series that deals with separation and child custody. The first part aired Thursday and is now on YouTube here. I highly recommend it. On YouTube, it's divided into six sections of 10 minutes each.

Encouragingly enough, it's entitled "Who Needs Fathers?" with the subtitle which seems to answer the question, "For the Sake of the Kids." Part I follows two separated couples with children, Alex and Juliette who have four and Chris and Angela who have two. How the two couples handle their respective separations and childcare arrangements is the main thrust of the piece.

Alex and Juliette are at odds from the first and it's all about Alex's access to their four boys. Juliette very frankly impedes him at every turn. A holiday in France that he's planned for weeks and which the boys eagerly anticipate has to be cancelled at the last minute because Juliette refuses to allow him entry to their home, a fact she later lies about on camera. Another tactic she employs is to allow Alex to pick up three of the boys but not the fourth claiming that the child doesn't want to go. Later Alex learns that she'd promised him an opportunity to go horseback riding that Saturday which of course he wanted to do. So what she represents as the boy's idea was really her own.

Chris and Angela don't have the financial resources that Alex and Juliette do, and that may help to explain their different approach to childcare. They're determined to stay out of the courts and to do everything by negotiated agreement between the two of them. That doesn't mean they're free of enmity or that everything runs smoothly, but despite some serious difficulties, many of which stem from their financial straits, they manage to get by. They're rarely at each others' throats and their parenting shows it. They come close to an equally-shared childcare arrangement; Angela pays for all the children's needs and Chris pays her mortgage payment and his own. Through it all, the viewer senses that the two, though separated for good, nevertheless doggedly work together for the sake of the children and themselves.

Early in Part I, Chris referred to the courts as "so adversarial," and it's that acrimony that he and Angela are determined to avoid. And they do.

Not so Alex and Juliette. Time and again Alex has had to seek help from the courts to get Juliette to comply with the most routine of matters. And in the most egregious instance, the court is there for him. When Juliette thwarts his holiday plans he applies for an emergency order which is granted and allows him and the kids to be together on holiday. But the more niggling matters can't be dealt with that way. He calls the police in an effort to get her to comply with her obligations, but they arrive at midnight and announce that there's nothing they can do.

The painful fact is that, for Alex, he's saddled with an ex who knows how to play the game to give him just enough grief on a continual basis that it hurts him but won't do much to impress a judge. She doesn't answer or return phone calls or text messages which makes Alex drive all over London in the often-vain hope of getting to see one of his children. She lets him see three of his kids as scheduled, but entices the fourth to stay with her.

By the end of Part I, the message is clear - courts can't do a lot when one parent is determined to thwart the reasonable rights of the other.

But is that really true? Isn't it more accurate to say that courts don't do a lot when visitation rights are ignored by custodial parents? After all, while the court moved swiftly to order Juliette to let the boys go on holiday with their dad, she suffered no ill effects of her illegal conduct. In short, it was a free shot at Alex. He and the children were the only ones to suffer due to her violation of a court order.

And that's a very old story. The same family courts that toss child-support obligors in jail in a heartbeat blithely ignore their own orders of visitation. The result? Custodial parents know to a certainty that there will be no consequences for the most outrageous violations, so often enough, that's exactly what they do.

Perhaps Juliette could have benefited from listening to Angela who early in Part I said that often mothers carry a lot of emotional baggage regarding the children after divorce. She then added that "they'll have to answer to the children later" in life because of it.